Frederic Vasseur says his own expectations ahead of the 2018 Formula 1 season have not been raised significantly by the new partnership between his Sauber F1 Team and Alfa Romeo, and all he wants is an improvement on the kind of results the team has had over the past few seasons.

2018 marks the first season of the partnership with Alfa Romeo, and sees the C37 chassis fitted with the current specification of Ferrari power unit, while Charles Leclerc has joined Marcus Ericsson in the driver line-up.

The Hinwil-based team has scored only seven points across the past two campaigns, and finished at the bottom of the Constructors’ Championship for the very first time in 2017, but team principal Vasseur insists the target for the team is to show consistent improvements throughout the forthcoming season.

“For me it’s difficult to predict where we will be on the grid, and I think it’s not always a good idea to have this kind of target,” said Vasseur to RACER. “The main topic for me is to be able to improve.

“We know where we are, we know where we were last year – which is far away – and the most important thing is to catch up with the field and then to improve during the season.

“We are reinforcing the team in every single department. Some of the guys joined the team in the last weeks and some of them will join the team over the next months.

“The most important thing for me is to show that we are going to improve from last year, and then at every single event we have to show that we are heading in a good way and to improve during the season.”